Not bad, eh?

Here is my darling husband's first piece of knitting:

He has had some ups and downs with this, as you can see. Firstly, there's the gusset he started creating above the garter stitch section by doing increases in the middle of the work. Then there are a few rows where he knit or purled into the backs of the stitches instead of the fronts, hence the twisting (which I've just noticed you can't really see in this picture). Last night I did some tinking for him after he messed up the rib pattern in one spot. But there are big sections of this piece where the stitches are very consistent and everything looks exactly right. I am very, very proud. Moreover, the ribbing you can see in the most recent rows was all his own idea. He just started it up himself because he wanted to try ribbing. He is a fearless knitter. And by his own admission, he is actually liking it! In a word, he rocks. :)

But if he thinks he's getting his hands on my cashmere/silk blends, he has another think coming.

Thanks also to Charalynne for her compliments yesterday about the blog in the comments. And hun, I don't think anybody has as many projects on the go as I do. :) Or if they do, I haven't found their blog yet. I am - I freely admit it - insane. I don't recommend trying to imitate my WIPload unless you have some serious intestinal fortitude or else Unfinished Project Guilt is a completely unknown component of your emotional repertoire. :) Even with all the knitting time I get on my ghastly daily commute, I still lose sleep to knitting and have been told off many times for this by my husband. But I am trying to get better.

Snowdrop cloth for DH's aunt

In desperation, I set myself daily quotas for this project from now until the wedding. If I am to complete this in time, I must finish 5 points along the edging every day. Unfortunately, due to DD's hellish Tuesday night - which left me too dazed on Wednesday to do much of anything - I fell behind in the middle of the week. However, yesterday I more than caught up and surged ahead of my quota. I now have 24 points around the edging, which means that I have completed one side. There may yet be a light at the end of the tunnel. Here is a visual of some of the edging:

Bear with me

After weeks of coping with DD's having the runs, she has now developed a cold. She's exhausted. DH is exhausted. I'm not too chipper, either. Blogging is on hold. (Knitting, of course, continues.) Thank you for your patience. :)

Step one: Find the damn thing

I've been threatening a lot lately to take a picture of my husband's first attempt at knitting and post it here. However, when I came to actually do this, I ran into a little snag - I had no idea where to find it. But recently, triumph! It turns out he's been storing it in a plastic bag that keeps making its way onto the floor under the coffee table in our family room, to be found by our daughter, who exclaims, "Mummy's knitting!" At which point, of course, we are able to tell her, "Actually, that's Daddy's knitting."

Anyway, now I at least know where to find it. Step two will be to actually take a picture of it, preferably without him knowing. I don't want him getting all self-conscious on me about showing his knitting to others. (I'm not saying he would, I just don't want to run the risk. That would just be sillyness.)

Snowdrop cloth for DH's aunt

I think I am completely screwed. 18 days to go until the wedding, including today and the day of the actual event, and I have just six - count 'em, six - zig-zags done on the edging so far. Out of eighty. Screwed, I tell you, screwed. I haven't had a chance yet to take a shot of the edging (it looks very nice), but I can show you what the whole thing looked like, pre-edging, all laid out nicely on our living room floor this weekend, pseudo-blocked:

My apologies for the fact that the pattern of our living room rug is peeking through the knitting and messing with the view of the lace pattern on the cloth. However, you can probably still get a very good idea of how nice it looks anyway. Note also that the huge gaping maw is gone - I did some fixing-up of that. There's still more fixing to do because you can still sorta see it close-up, but it looks scads better than it did.

Miscellaneous thought bubbles

I haven't seen DH's knitting for several days. I have no idea how far along it is, or what it looks like, or how he's improving, or anything. I am going to have to hunt it down and find out! (And, well, also take a picture of it for the blog. :)

Yesterday on the subway I got complimented on my Snowdrop project by another knitter. She thought it was fantastic. She also recognized that the pattern was not complex and said she might try to do it herself.

There was a knitting reference on CSI last night. Alas, it was not a positive one. Corruption in high levels of government in the city of Los Angeles had been discovered, and the cop who had the power to whistle-blow was pondering whether or not to do anything about it. She realised this could mean her job, and when it was pointed out to her that she could just retire after the case went through, she said, "And what am I supposed to do? Knit?" Sigh. But I must admit to wanting to yell at the screen, "Yes! That totally sounds like a plan! Blow the whistle and get knitting!"

Snowdrop cloth for DH's aunt

I'm measuring my progress by commuting milestones again...today I not only finished one snowdrop before I even got to the subway, I almost got two snowdrops done by the time I got to work. There are now just five snowdrops running horizontally across the row. I am so close to finishing the main body. So close. Whee!

Yesterday evening's pros and cons

Pros

• Great little shop!
• Many knitters! All very friendly, making for a thoroughly enjoyable evening. The only drawback was that, as I was totally new to the group, there were some conversations I could not participate in (given that they revolved around events which I had not been around for). But I do plan to keep going back, so that problem will eventually resolve itself. I don't think I'll be able to make it every week, but maybe every month. It's definitely worth returning for - it's a lovely group of people. Thanks to everyone who was there. :)
• There was a baby there! The store owner's daughter. She's six weeks old. Wearing knitted baby love. So cute. Sadly, I did not get to hold her because, well, let's face it, her mother doesn't know me from a hole in the ground. However, it was lovely to see a baby.
• There was roving. Including alpaca roving. Ummmm.
• Aven and Stephanie were there, as I had hoped. (Aven's new sweater looked terrific.) Sadly, Sue wasn't there (at least not while I was), but hopefully we'll meet up another time.

Cons

• I pulled a me* and got turned around in Kensington Market after I left. As a result, I thought I had emerged out onto College when actually I was on Spadina. Took the wrong streetcar and spent ages longer getting home than I shoulda.
• There were no 3mm circs in stock at the shop. Obviously, everyone else needed one, too. :)
• I learned that an electric drum carder would set me back at least a few thousand dollars. A manual drum carder, several hundred at minimum. So much for that idea.
• I allowed the weather yesterday morning to fool me and so I left my coat at home. It was friggin' freezing from evening onwards and I was coldcoldcold on my way home.
• I missed my darling girlie a lot a lot a lot. :(

Snowdrop cloth for DH's aunt

You know you're a commuter when...you measure your knitting progress by what station you're at when you hit certain progress points in your knitting. Yesterday morning I noted that it took me until Eglinton station to complete one vertical snowdrop. This morning, it took me only until York Mills. I love all this decreasing! I now have just eleven snowdrops running horizontally across the row. Very soon I will have few enough stitches to be able to stretch the whole thing out on one needle. Sometimes it does get tedious, but I remind myself sternly that the tediousness I am currently experiencing is nothing to how tedious the lace edging is going to be, so I had better suck it up and get to it. :)

* Seriously. My ability to get lost is frightening.

Will I/won't I

Still waffling on whether or not to go to the Lettuce SnB tonight.

Pros

• My husband is cool with me going
• I really, really want to go - I'm sure I'll have a great time and meet fun people
• There will be at least one baby there
• Sue will be there, and possibly Aven and maybe even Stephanie
• It's at a yarn shop - no more needs to be said
• I could probably pick up a much-needed 3mm circular while I'm there

Cons

• My husband is having a bad mood day and would probably really appreciate having me around this evening
• I will miss saying goodnight to my girl
• My dinner will be one lonely little cheese sandwich
• Laundry backlog

Auuuggghhh! I still don't know.

Vigdis tunic for moi

I kinda fell off the wagon last night. The endless slogging through the Snowdrop project was beginning to wear on me, so I picked this up last night instead. I don't feel guilty, either. The front of Vigdis is now probably about an inch longer.

Snowdrop cloth for DH's aunt

Despite taking a break from this last night, I'm still forging ahead really well - the centre panel is DONE! I'm now back down to fifteen snowdrops running horizontally across the row. Here's what it looked like this morning before I left for work:

My apologies for not being able to show the whole thing - I spread it out on a bed to photograph, and then stood on the bed to take the picture, and, well, I'm just too damn short to 'zoom out' enough to get the whole thing in the shot. :) The huge gaping maw of laddering is unfortunately still there, as you can see, but if you ignore it, I think the whole thing looks really good. It's currently a diamond shape as opposed to a square, but I intend to fix that during the blocking process.

(Updated to remove the table code I originally had - apparently it was messing up some readers' browsers' ability to view the blog.)

There's some good in everything

Last week when I had my Snowdrop project all stretched out on a conference table undergoing amputation, one of my co-workers (who knits and crochets) came by and exclaimed that she would never be able to do that. She then pointed out an advantage of crochet that I had never thought of before - when you have to rip it back, you only have one stitch to put back on the hook. Isn't that astonishing? I can't imagine. How ridiculously easy. Whereas I, the knitter, had well over two hundred teeny, fine, delicate stitches to place, with great precision, back on my needle. Hm.

(I am still unlikely to take up crochet, though. It's not remotely as interesting as knitting and besides, I pretty much suck at it.)

I got more comments!

Aven, heavens, don't worry about not posting about the launch right away. I don't think it's a prerequisite to being a Harlot fan. :) Besides, I read your blog entry from Sunday and you sound unbelievably busy.

For Sue - yes, I am busy! (Although not compared to Aven.) But in a good way. It was great meeting you too, and thanks for the compliment about my blog! I actually have been thinking for several weeks that I'd like to get out to a Lettuce SnB, but I didn't think this would be the week since that would make two Wednesdays in a row of abandoning my husband and daughter in the evening. But you never know, DH might be cool with that. And I really would adore getting out and hanging with other knitters, especially if there will be babies there. :) I think I will raise the idea this evening and see what transpires.

Snowdrop cloth for DH's aunt

Wow! It seems like every time I turn around, I'm finishing another vertical snowdrop. This is great. I'm now working on the row which will shrink the work down to just one broken-out snowdrop (horizontally) in the centre panel. I can't wait till I get to the point where all the stitches fit on one needle again without scrunching, so that I can lay the whole thing out smoothly and get a really good look at it. No pictures again today, though, sorry - it took me a while to wake up this morning and I had to leave early because I was catching a bus instead of getting driven into the city. And I'd rather not take pictures at night because I've discovered that my camcorder takes way superior shots in natural sunlight. Stay tuned. Pictures are coming, honest.

The learning continues

After he had accomplished over twenty rows of garter stitch, I taught my husband how to purl. He understood the concept very well - pushing the loop through the previous stitch front-to-back as opposed to pulling it through back-to-front. He did a couple, and then said, "And people find this difficult?" When I answered yes, he declared that he didn't understand how that could be. Which indicates to me that he is well on his way to being a fearless knitter.

More evidence for this occurred after he tried, on a whim, by himself, an increase. Just for the heck of it. I had talked to him briefly about increases and how to do them, but he wanted to try it on his own. He used the 'make two from the next stitch' approach, and one row later, slunk over to me to ask for my help because he'd hit a problem. Turns out he had purled into the front of the stitch, then purled into the front of the stitch again. Unsurprisingly, he found when he hit that part of the next row, he had one huge stitch instead of two individual ones. I set him straight and told him that the technique requires working into the back of a stitch the second time to create the increase. He got it right away and kept going, adding a stitch here and there whenever he felt like it.

He then began to wonder why the work was taking on a strange shape. I explained to him that since he was always adding new stitches in the middle of the row, he was creating a gusset in the middle of the work. If he wanted the edges of the work to start angling out, he would have to increase at the sides. Since he sews, he understood precisely what I was talking about.

He's really doing quite well indeed. He still has tension issues, but that is entirely expected, and he does seem to be improving as he goes.

The neatest part was when I sat down for a snack at the kitchen table Saturday night, and he had to move the yarn ball aside to give me room.

"Oh here, let me just move my knitting for you," he said.

Then he looked at me with a delighted smile.

"Hear that? My knitting, I said."

I'm very proud.

Snowdrop cloth for DH's aunt

Many more decreasing rows have been made. I'm very enthusiastic about the stage I'm in now. As my husband said, with a happy gasp, "You're going downhill!!!" That's exactly right. Downhill, smooth sailing, and lookin' fine. I'm now down to just five broken-out snowdrops in the centre panel. I wanted to take a picture of it all for the blog today, but DD had a nightmare of a morning and there was no time.

Vigdis tunic for moi

I had a few minutes to kill this weekend, so I fixed the miscrossed cable and kept going...only to find that I'd omitted doing a cable move in the main pattern two rows back. I only got one of them fixed before I ran out of time.

Elizabeth of York vest for moi

No progress, but I do have some pictures:

The completed back

One of the front panels, in progress

More book launch debriefing

Well, first of all, I'm delighted to be able to say that I found the identity of friendly lady #2 whom I walked to the subway with on Wednesday evening. It's Jackie, whose blog is entitled Norge Thingy.

Second of all, I feel compelled to point out that I've been visiting a whole bunch of GTA knitting blogs since the launch, and an extremely high percentage of them which have entries made since the launch mention the launch. :) We're all such big fans!

And now, to speak to yesterday's comments (I have COMMENTS again...oh it was a happy thing to see). Carol, I am absolutely delighted that you think I'm a speedy knitter. I must admit that I was taking surreptitious glances at the knitters around me at the launch and was thinking, "Oh phew, yes, my speed is definitely okay." I am also relieved to hear of someone else who holds the yarn like me. If there's someone else who does it, it can't be wrong. :) But I must assure your DH that there's really no need to be too impressed, because I do have to look at the chart. Every time I start a new row I have to whip the chart out again and see what's to be done. The new row being memorized (which isn't hard, each individual row is very easy to remember), I stuff the pattern back in my bag and knit away sans chart. Because each row is so big, you could watch me for quite some time without seeing me pull out the chart again.

And speaking of the slipover pattern, I am very, very, very glad you didn't think I was gauche. I have been worried about that. I have always had a penchant for showing off that I haven't quite been able to curtail completely. If I can pull it off okay, though, terrific. It is too bad you didn't come over to say hi, but I do think it's wonderfully neat that you were able to find me in the blog universe!

For Steph, who also commented - well, the only reason I said nice things about the launch was that I hoped you'd give me a cut of your royalties.

[Pause]

But seriously...

Of course I raved about the launch! One says nice things about stuff that is good. :) And thank you again for your compliments on the slipover. It will probably take me many long months of starting and stopping the project before I finish it, but it will totally be worth it.

Snowdrop cloth for DH's aunt

What with one thing and another, I didn't get a whole lot of time to work on this yesterday. However, that almost doesn't matter because I discovered this morning on the train that I'd screwed up. I had failed to take into account all the implications of the planned decreasing on the pattern. As a result, I overshot the point where I was supposed to start decreasing by one vertical snowdrop. Sigh. So...on my lunch break I took the needle out of the work, spread the whole thing out on a conference table and ripped it back to where I should have stopped increasing. Then, very carefully and painstakingly, I put the needle back into every single stitch. After that was all done, I still had some time left on my break (allowing for time to eat, of course) and so I did my first decrease row. Oh, the triumph. I feel much better now.

Aboutaboutabout

About Fair Isle knitting

I have discovered that if you wish to attract attention and impress the snot out of people, knit a large Fair Isle project in public. I don't think I have been complimented so much on my knitting in one day than I was yesterday when I worked on my grandfather's Hillhead slipover. And I'm not just talking about at the book launch, either. I mean out and about on public transit. It even inspired one young woman on the train (who 'can only knit scarves', according to her, but I say feh, knitting scarves still makes you a knitter, there ain't a thing wrong with scarves) to ask me questions, such as how come I get stocking stitch when all I'm doing is the knit stitch (since when she wants stocking stitch, she has to alternate knit and purl rows). So I got to explain the concept of 'knitting in the round' to her and how that affects things. I love seeing the lights go on in people's heads when they get the concepts.

I also have to admit to shamelessly showing off the slipover to the Harlot herself (after getting my book signed, yippee). I remain embarrassed about this, because I didn't segueway nicely into it or anything, I just said, 'this is what I'm working on' and pulled it out in the most showoffy manner. Not suave at all. However...she loved it. :) I'm not sure if that justifies the gaucheness of the showing-off, though. Hopefully it does.

But possibly the best compliment was when two ladies sit down next to me at the launch, and one of them pointed to my work and told her friend, "Now that is hardcore." How about that, eh? I can fool people into believing I'm a hardcore knitter! Woo! Whooda thunk it.

About meeting people

I met lots of people at the book launch last night. Aven recognized the Hillhead slipover and came over to say hi. She's just a lovely person, we had a fun little chat. I also happened to sit near the Yarn Harlot's family - her sister-in-law Kelly and a really nice lady that I think is the Harlot's mother-in-law. They liked the slipover, too. I also ran into a friend of mine from the SCA, who works for Thomas Allen, the Canadian distributor of the book. He said that the tour was going well, all very successful, that people seemed to enjoy Harlot (well, duh) and I assured him that he was quite right and she was terrific. And then as I was leaving the museum, I walked down to the subway with two friendly blogger ladies, one of whom is Sue (whose daughter Lara is a real cutie-patootie, I tell ya).

About the launch itself

It's a good thing the Harlot's husband (god that he is) recovered her speech from her computer because it was a good one. Very funny, very well delivered. Incidentally, Joe was going around the whole evening looking proud as punch. Harlot looked fantastic in new pants and great hair, very sophistocated. She worked on her Koigu sock during the question and answer period (during which I failed miserably to remember to ask her what bookbookbook #2 was about, DAMN!), and I got pretty depressed about my own knitting watching how she does it. She knits like butta. Smooth, fast, easy - sigh. I really do need to start going to the Lettuce Knit ess-n-bees, maybe I can pick up how she does it. I suspect it's going to mean not using my thumb to hold the working yarn, which is a frightening prospect.

Anyway, it was really quite weird wandering around the launch and recognizing people who didn't know who the heck I was. I mean really, what is the etiquette for this kind of thing? How do you approach someone whose life you know a lot about and that you think is really cool and with whom you'd like to strike up a friendship, all because of a blog, and not come off like an obsessive stalker? How? Has Miss Manners covered this?

About revenge

I tend to spend too much time in the bathroom during my before-bedtime routine. This is because it's just about the only time I ever get to read. :) So my husband knows to occupy himself with something interesting while waiting for me to emerge. Last night, he chose to knit during the wait. He's very proud of all this knitting he's doing, by the way - he's done ten rows so far. Finally I realised that it was late, I was tired, and we would be exhausted tomorrow if we didn't cut out all this nice relationship reconnecting chatting and go the heck to bed. So I went over to the light switch and said, "We're going to bed now." He looked up at me, and an evil, evil grin spread across his face as he said,

"Okay, just let me finish this row."

If my daughter had not been sleeping I would have let out an anguished howl of horror at hearing my own fateful words echoed back to me. I am so screwed.

Snowdrop cloth for DH's aunt

Got going on this again today. I am now fewer than 11 rows away from the mid-point, after which I can start decreasing. Woohoo! And I forgot to mention in my last blog entry that I spent some time with some spare yarn and needles working out how best to do the decreases. I think I have come up with something that looks very nice:

Hillhead slipover for Grandpa

I got a lot done on this yesterday. Lovin' it, lovin' it. It now looks like this:

Bookbookbook

I am going to the Yarn Harlot's book launch tonight at the Textile Museum of Canada and I am completely excited. I have my copy of her book, I have a dinner packed, I have my Hillhead slipover project in my bag (cuz Steph loves the ribbing, doncha know...geez, I'm such a slavish groupie) and I am prepared to line up for a long time to get a good seat. It may help that I have been to this museum before for a Peter Collingwood lecture. If the launch is in the same auditorium (it's not huge), I fully expect that it will be standing room only, with many disappointed Harlot fans left outside while the rest of us inside backstab each other with our knitting needles to achieve good seats. I am really hoping that leaving right after work will get me inside. I'm sure that the Harlot thinks that no one will come - I have the reverse expectation! This is her home town, after all.

There are a few downsides to all this, though:

• Although my Hillhead slipover would seem to be the ideal project to bring because it looks desperately impressive, is something Steph has mentioned she likes, is something I really enjoy working on, and, to top it off, coordinates with my outfit today (I swear I didn't plan that part), I will probably be smothered with embarassment anyway knitting in front of a bunch of knitters because of my pathetically babyish Fair Isle technique. Oh, well.
  
  
• I will not be seeing my dear girlie tonight before she goes to bed. To make matters worse, she did wake up five minutes before I had to go this morning, which initially made me really happy, because I figured I wouldn't have to spend an entire day without being with her. I popped into the nursery to give her a quick good morning and hug goodbye. MISTAKE. My normally cool-as-a-cucumber-when-Mummy-goes-to-work kiddo broke into tragic sobbing, with real tears and reaching for me and wailing "Mummmmmeeee!" and the whole bit. I. Am. Officially. Scum.

Vigdis tunic for moi

At last, a picture of the progress.

Unfortunately, what I think I forgot to mention the last time I talked about this project is that right before I put down the needles, I discovered a cable miscross about eight rows back. You may be able to see at the top of the cable on the right side of the main pattern where I have unravelled that section - my next step is to fix it back up. Not a difficult task, just a real pain in the tuchus.

Snowdrop shawl for DH's aunt

Okay, you know how yesterday I claimed I would work on this exclusively until it was done? I guess I lied. Impressing other knitters takes precedence. This is sitting at home today. However, shock and awe (and disgust) settled over me yesterday during my lunch break as I realised I had made some errors about ten rows back. Firstly, I had managed somehow to drop a stitch in the middle of the centre panel. And secondly, I had managed somehow to pick up an extra two stitches at the point where I last broke out a snowdrop on the right side of the centre panel. There was no freaking way I was going to rip out all those hard-won rows, so I held my nose, unravelled the stitches in question and then knit them back up again the right way. (And, of course, I also picked up the dropped stitch all the way up to the top). I was tremendously impressed with myself at this success. However, the result, predictably, was the worst case of (what is essentially) laddering that I have ever seen:

The huge gaping maw of loose stitches in this photograph is the problem. But I still refuse to rip the rows back and correct it. I shall instead either do some strategic pulling so that the looseness is evenly divided over each row, or I will tighten just this section and secure the extra ends at the back of the work somehow. Stay tuned.

Hillhead slipover for Grandpa

Got about four or five more rows done on the commute this morning. It's so neat working on this project. I'm almost done one main pattern repeat.

Surreal

Hubby sat down last night with me in front of the television and started back in on his knitting. I didn't notice it at first, then looked over to discover that the stuff in his hands was needles and yarn! This all seems pretty wierd. He says he's getting the hang of it more. Instead of being horribly awkward, he tells me, it is now just really awkward. I took a peek at his work this morning - not half bad! It's a bit wonky, but it's certainly scads better than my first attempts. I shall have to take a picture of it when he's done a few more rows and post it here, even though I think he would be embarrassed if he knew I did that. (So, shhhhhh, don't tell.)

Snowdrop cloth for DH's aunt

It occurred to me yesterday that I should be going into full-on panic mode. There are 31 days until the wedding. Today is the 24th day since starting this project. And yet, I am not yet half done the knitting, not to mention that there are yards of lace edging to work around the thing when I do finish, plus blocking and drying...I may be screwed. I shall have to focus on this exclusively from now on, I think, to have an outside shot of completing it on time. So, it came to work with me this morning and it shall get worked on tonight as well. I'm now on the third-last vertical snowdrop until the halfway point. Seven snowdrops knocked out horizontally in the centre panel. Panic knitting continues.

Share and enjoy

Saturday night while watching Emma (which I enjoyed), I sat down with my husband and taught him how to knit. I began with a basic-principles discussion on how knitting is constructed, and then taught him the knit stitch. I cast on about twenty stitches for him and let him practice away. I think he did three rows. It didn't go too badly! His tension wasn't tremendously even, but it wasn't too uneven either, although I suspect he would have an easier time sticking the needle through stitches if he loosened up a bit. :) I had warned him before starting that the process would probably feel quite awkward at first, what with your hands having to work out how to hold needles and a working strand of yarn, and a few stitches into it he was agreeing with me wholeheartedly. He was a little disappointed after three rows that it wasn't feeling less awkward. I assured him that comfort would come with more practice. But I think he was pretty impressed with himself (at least, I certainly hope he was). And even though he refers to his achievement as 'just the knit stitch - I don't know how to do anything yet, really', I beg to differ, and I'm quite proud of him, especially since he seems interested in continuing.

In blog news, I did some updating of my project archive this weekend. I'm including more details on each project page about the designer, pattern and pattern source. I haven't finished updating all the project pages yet with this new information, but it's coming. I also broke out the list of completed projects year-by-year and added dates. In doing all of this, I remembered quite a lot of other projects I'd done that I'd forgotten about, so a number of those have been added.

NEW - I do shrug for moi

The new Knitty is out and I took a peek. The 'I do' shrug by Jody Prival is gorgeous and I lovelovelove it. IT MUST BE MINE. I think some midnight blue silk I have would match the gauge.

Vigdis tunic for moi

Rats. I meant to take a picture of my progress on this, and forgot. Ah, well, next time. I'm now on the last pattern repeat before the neck shaping on the front.

Snowdrop cloth for DH's aunt

Fewer than five more snowdrops to work vertically before I hit the mid-point and can start decreasing. Woo! There are now five snowdrops broken out horizontally in the centre panel.

Cabled sweater for baby MacDonald

Bottom ribbing is complete, main body has begun. It's looking great so far.

Small victories

Snowdrop cloth for DH's aunt

I now have three knocked-out snowdrops, horizontally, in the centre panel. This makes it much easier to notice that there is a centre panel. I think it looks great. Hopefully you agree:

Self-designed sweater for baby MacDonald

I started this up again last night, and I took it to work with me this morning. I'm not finished the bottom ribbing yet, but it's definitely getting there, and I haven't been making any more errors worth mentioning. I also stopped off this morning at the Lewiscraft local to my office and picked up two more balls of the yarn, since I'm running extremely low. I was actually pretty shocked that the yarn was in stock - Murphy's Law usually dictates that if you start a project when you know you don't have enough yarn, without actually going out and buying the extra yarn first, especially when the project gives you as hard a time as this one has been giving me, that more yarn for the project will be totally unattainable. And yet, this was not the case. This makes me very nervous, because surely this means that Murphy will exact revenge on me in some other horrible way?

Carnival Coat for DD

You may recall that yesterday I brought this project and the buttons to work so I could sew the buttons on during my lunch break. I even had needles. But...did I bring the yarn to do the sewing with? Of course not. Buttons had to wait until the evening when I got home. They're now on! They look so good. They match the cardigan so perfectly. However, even though the buttons being on brought completion of the project just that much closer, I couldn't bring myself to do any of the fiddly fixes that have to come next. Later. Much later. When the back of my neck doesn't tense up just thinking about it.

Den of tranquility

And here it is. A shot of our living/dining room as seen facing the sofa. Note that the sofa is ready to be sat on by anyone, without their having to move anything aside to make room for their heinie. The two end tables are full of knitting, and the baskets are full of yarn. But it's all tidy. Even the dining table behind the sofa is clear, save for a centrepiece of a glass oil lamp upon a decorative potholder. And it is in this fantastic environment that I've been knitting for the past several evenings. Ahhhh. Serenity now.

Next up: the powder room. :::Shudder:::

Snowdrop cloth for DH's aunt

I am annoyed. Last night as I was working on this, I received a phone call. It was from a lovely woman calling for a legitimate reason (as opposed to, say, a telemarketing purpose) and I enjoyed talking to her. However, if she hadn't called, I would not have jumped up and not noticed that I'd gotten my foot caught in the strand of yarn between the cone and the knitting. SNAP. Sigh. I'm guessing that knotting strands at the back is not a good option for lace knitting, eh? Grumble grumble. Oh, well. I started the breaking-out of the centre panel last night, and continued this morning on my commute. It looks good.

Cape Cod sweater for MIL

Coming along nicely! I'm quite close to finishing pattern repeat #2.

Carnival Coat for DD

Behold, the buttons:

I took them and the cardigan to work today, so I should be able to sew on all three buttons on my lunch break.

The early bird

...Ain't me. But it's a good thing we did have an early bird singing its sweet little heart out near our window this morning, because that's all that woke my husband and I up after we slept through both alarms again. I blame DH. He has the luxury of being home all day and can nap. He should be bright and chipper and forcing me to get up. Yeah.

Anyway, the lost half-hour this morning once again destroyed all my big photo-taking-for-the-blog plans. I was thinking of showing off how great my living/dining room looks, displaying the new buttons I got in the mail from my MIL yesterday, maybe squeezing in some shots of my Vigdis and Cape Cod projects...but, no. Nada. Zilcho. Squat. Sorry! I'll try again tomorrow.

Snowdrop cloth for DH's aunt

I didn't get a whole lot of time to work on this last night, but I can say that I am just one measly little row away from starting to break out the centre panel. Woo!

Cape Cod sweater for MIL

Coming along very nicely indeed. I'm three-quarters into pattern repeat #2.

Carnival Coat for DD

Yesterday's mail brought buttons from my MIL! Armed with the original buttons she had bought for the project, she went back to her LYS and successfully got another 2-pack exactly like them. So she mailed off both packs, thus sending me four buttons, right? Alas, no. One of the buttons broke in transit. :( At least, I have to believe it happened in-transit, since I don't think for a moment she would have sent me a button she knew was broken. That's the bad news. The good news is that I only need three buttons for the project, so it's okay. It means I have no extra buttons if one happens to get lost or (heaven help us) broken, but at least I can finish the darn project with what I have. MIL, on the other hand, is probably going to be very upset to hear of the demise of button #4. Take this story as a warning, kiddies - don't send buttons in the mail without protection. Bubble wrap would have worked, and the recipient gets the pleasure of popping the bubbles.

Disruption of routine

Normally, when we visit my parents for dinner, I spend the pre-dinner time playing delightedly with my precious offspring, and the post-dinner time (after she falls asleep) knitting.

But in yesterday's mail, the Yarn Harlot's book arrived, and my husband brought it with him to my parents' home so I could start reading it right away. I am afraid that playing with DD and knitting took a back seat while I ate the book up. Unfortunately, DH was loathe to tolerate my habit of reading out the good bits (which, in this case, was just about Every. Single. Page.) because also in the mail yesterday was the textbook for the golf club making course he is taking next month. His excitement over his book was quite comparable to my excitement over my book. My mom had to tell me off because I was quoting too much to let him read it. :)

All in all, it was a big day yesterday, mail-wise. Because there was also a card from my grandma with two cheques - one for me, one for DD, containing the bequests to us from my grandfather's will. Nothing huge, since of course the bulk of his estate went to my grandma for her to live off of, but it definitely alleviates some worries. However, I would much rather have those worries. I want my grandpa back.

Cape Cod sweater for MIL

I think I will be taking another photo of this soon. I am making excellent headway on pattern repeat #2. The yarn is also flowing much more freely. I have discovered that although I can't stop the yarn from hanging up on itself, if I pull verrry gently and slowly, it will refrain from actually tangling and sort itself out.

Photos!

Work proceeds very well indeed on the cleanup of the house. Our living/dining room now looks fantastic. All the knitting is conveniently stowed - you either can't see it, or it adds to the decor by looking nice and homey in a basket. The floor is clear. The dining room table is free of crap. The whole space is so relaxing and calming I can't get over it. I mean, I really can't get over it. I've spent countless minutes this weekend just wandering in and looking at the room with this dreamy smile of contentment. I just want to sit in there and knit my little heart out. Which, okay, is no different from what I usually do when I'm in there, but at least now I am calmed and inspired while doing it. Peace reigns.

Anyway, onto my point...while clearing all the crap off the dining room table, I came across a batch of photographs which included mucho pictures of completed knitting projects! I'd been looking for those! So it was with delight that I scanned them, uploaded them, and am now offering them to you for your viewing pleasure. The projects which now have accompanying visuals are:

• Patons cardigan for Ruby Ashthorn
• Patons cardigan for Isaac Gormanshaw
• Cleckheaton cabled jacket for Hannah Harding
• Patons Fun and Games sweater for Sebastian Hoyt

And a few more projects got new photos this weekend. Firstly, I realised I'd forgotten about a completed project I did - some time ago, I took mercy on my daughter's doll and made her some clothes so she wouldn't have to be dragged around in the buff. Also, my cousin emailed me a photo of her son in the romper I made for him. I'd already posted pictures of the completed romper, but there's nothing like seeing the recipient actually in a knitted item. He looks so incredibly cute and cuddly, you must check it out. (As usual, the child's face has been pixellated out since I never post recognizable shots of kids without parental permission.)

I am amused

People continue to find me through search engines. Some of the searches are totally understandable and normal, but others are pretty funny. This weekend, some funny ones came up.

Someone - who has, perhaps not coincidentally, set up their computer to be completely anonymous - found my A Very Harlot Poncho project page while searching for "harlot photos". :) I am pretty sure he (yes, I'm assuming a certain gender - wouldn't you?) was intensely disappointed. My heart weeps.

And on Friday, someone found me because I am the number one hit when you search for "a list of knitting projects" on Yahoo! Search. That made me laugh.

Vigdis tunic for moi

I should have taken a photo of this one, actually. I got a lot done this weekend. I'm now on pattern repeat #5 out of six. It's looking great.

Snowdrop cloth for DH's aunt

I hauled ass on this project this weekend, I gotta say. I now have fifteen snowdrops running horizontally, and I'm just five rows away from when I get to start knocking out the centre panel. No major errors were committed. In fact, no errors at all that I can remember, except for that one that I noticed about 10 stitches after I'd made it - a quick tink back and all was well once again. Anyone want to put money down that I will start majorly screwing up now that I have gloated about not screwing up? :) I think the odds are good - Murphy does not like to be mocked.

Secret Garden cardigan for niece

I heaved a big sigh this weekend and frogged the whole thing. It now looks like this:

A few minutes into the frogging, DH wandered by and freaked right out. "What are you doing?!?" He calmed down after hearing my logical explanation, especially since there was still enough of the cardigan left that I could show him just how ridiculously small it was. He was still sad that I had to eliminate all my good work, though. And he mused on how strange it was that it takes so long to knit something, but so little time to rip it out. I agree.

Happy April Fool's Day

Vigdis tunic for moi

Things are going well. The instructions call for six repeats of the main pattern before starting the neck shaping, and I'm well into repeat number four.

Snowdrop cloth for DH's aunt

The part of my brain I use for knitting has apparently hit a bad patch of Stupid. I had to stop knitting this last night because I'd made a mistake. I tinked back to the source of the problem before going to bed. This morning I thought I fixed the problem and kept going...only to find that the problem was not fixed after all, and I had to tink back all over again. Then I discovered the problem: I'd dropped a stitch. Always a fun thing to do when knitting lace (not). After fixing that, I continued the Row of Hell only to screw up the pattern further down the row. Finally, as my morning commute was nearing completion, I finally finished the Row of Hell...and a mere two rows later, I made another error. And I can't figure out where. Le sigh.

Preemie burial gown for St. Michael's Hospital

Done! All seams are sewn, all ends are darned in, all buttons are on. I shall have to call up my friend who works at St. Mike's and use my need to hand over the gown to her as an excuse for us to have lunch. :) Here are photos:

front (I put a decorative button on the bodice because the knitting was noticeably loose around that area and it didn't look too good)

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